What Evidence Is Crucial in a Personal Injury Case?

In a personal injury case, you’ll need evidence to prove all the key elements of your claim. A personal injury attorney in Cumming can help you identify what’s needed, gather it, and then use it effectively.

From Your Personal Injury Attorney in Cumming: What Evidence Is Crucial in a Personal Injury Case?

There are four elements you must prove in your case. These four elements all have to be shown, piece by piece, and if one element can’t be proven, the rest of the claim falls apart. Here’s what you’ll need for each of the elements:

Duty of Care

“Duty of Care” is the legal obligation that a person or entity has towards other people in a given situation. Road users have a duty of care towards other road users to obey all road laws, for example. A doctor has a duty of care towards patients that requires him or her to follow best practices and act as a reasonable and competent doctor would under the same circumstances. 

To prove duty of care you may need contracts, video evidence (such as to show that you entered a place of business during normal working hours and were thus a protected visitor), correspondence, such as emails or medical records, and witness testimony.

Breach of Care

The next thing to show is that the person liable for your injuries breached the duty of care. In a car accident, you may be showing that they ran a red light. In a premises liability claim, you may need to show that a property owner was aware of a hazard but did not fix it or properly warn you about it. 

Proving this usually requires photos or video, witness testimony, the black box information from a vehicle, and sometimes the testimony of expert witnesses, such as in cases of medical malpractice, where you will need other competent doctors medical professionals to testify that the person treating you did not follow the standard of care required.

Causation

This step is where you prove that it was specifically the breach in duty of care that caused your injuries. It’s not enough that someone breached the duty of care. That breach must also have been the cause of the accident in which you were injured. To do this, you will need video and photographic evidence, witness testimony, and possibly written records.

Damages

Finally, you need to prove precisely what damages you suffered because of the accident caused by the other party’s breach of the duty of care. If you can’t present evidence of specific injuries that you have suffered, you have no claim. Most valuable here will usually be your medical records, any records from mental health therapy you may have needed, and possibly the testimony of friends, family, or coworkers who can testify to what you’ve suffered.

For help in proving your personal injury case, reach out to us now at Spaulding Injury Law Offices in Cumming, GA. We also serve Alpharetta, Lawrenceville, and Savannah and surrounding areas. 

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